Corporate Partner of the Year Award recognizes partnership between Hyundai’s legal team, CHOC Children’s and PLC
The Public Law Center will recognize Hyundai Motor America as Corporate Partner of the Year during the 2015 Volunteers for Justice Dinner. Once a month during the past year, attorneys and paralegals from Hyundai Motor America have staffed PLC’s Conservatorship and Guardianship Clinic at CHOC Children’s.
“Every time I work at the PLC Clinic at CHOC Children’s, I come away from the experience feeling so incredibly lucky,” said Hyundai Motor America Senior Counsel Geoffrey M. Moore. “It is tremendously rewarding to be able to give back to the community by working with PLC and CHOC Children’s to provide these pro bono services to such deserving people.”
PLC and CHOC Children’s created the Clinic to address two primary legal needs of CHOC patients: 1) securing guardianships in cases where children being cared for by someone other than their parent are seeking medical assistance; and 2) assisting families where disabled patients transitioning to adulthood need their parents to become conservators in order to continue making medical, legal, financial decisions on behalf of the patient.
Hyundai Motor America’s legal department was a natural fit as a partner, since the corporation had an existing philanthropic relationship with CHOC Children’s. Hyundai Motor America and its U.S. Dealer Council–through their nonprofit organization Hyundai Hope on Wheels–provided the largest corporate donation in CHOC Children’s history in 2011 through a $10 million gift to fund groundbreaking pediatric cancer research.
“Hyundai Motor America is a great example of the wonderful things that can happen when a partner not only lends its support to a shared cause, but goes all in to make the project successful,” said Leslie Bigler Lindgren, PLC’s Senior Lead Attorney. “PLC looks forward to continuing our partnership with Hyundai Motor America and CHOC Children’s.”
With nearly 100% participation from within the Hyundai Motor America legal department, the “inspiring” work the pro bono attorneys and paralegals perform not only helps fulfill an important part of their practice, but also serves as a great team building platform. Hyundai Motor America Counsel Meghan Bakshi Hoffman explains “Participants get to work with colleagues across different groups for the very first time, thus helping to connect attorneys from both the transactional and litigation teams”.
The 2015 Volunteers for Justice Dinner will be held on Monday, June 22 at Hotel Irvine. PLC will also honor Anna Strasburg Davis of UC Irvine School of Law as the Attorney of the Year and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP as the Law Firm of the Year. To find more information about VFJ, please visit www.publiclawcenter.org.